When the Department of Health and Human Services tried to claw back more than $10 billion in public health grants earlier this year, 20 blue-state attorneys general sued by pointing to the “major questions doctrine,” a Supreme Court precedent Democrats have otherwise lambasted and conservatives have long embraced.
The strategy worked, at least temporarily. A district judge issued an injunction siding with the states in mid-May, pointing, in part, to the major questions doctrine argument.
The precedent — which limits the power of executive branch agencies and was regularly used by the right against former President Joe Biden — was affirmed by the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency in 2022. It was strengthened by last year’s Loper Bright decision, which severely hampered an agency’s ability to interpret ambiguous laws.